Those One Show recommendations in full…

The One Show

Tonight (Friday 19 August) I should be featured on the One Show on BBC One, talking about the resurgence of British brewing with One Show reporter, Observer restaurant critic and Brixtonian Jay Rayner.

They’ve also asked me to recommend some beers to match with particular foods, sticking as much as possible to beers that are readily available. I thought my readers might be interested in reading what I told them, just in case they get it wrong!

This is what I first sent them:

IMPORTANT: The beer suggestions below are limited to beers that are widely available across the country in supermarkets and the like. Many of the more interesting beers are available only regionally or locally, or through specialists. As with any food matching suggestions there are no hard and fast rules and it’s always good to experiment!

Best to serve the beers lightly chilled, not too cold (around 10°C). Serve in large wine glasses in smaller quantities, not in pint pots.

Fuller's 1845

Note many of the beers suggested are bottle conditioned (‘Real Ale in a Bottle’) – bottled with live yeast and still naturally fermenting, so they may well contain a yeast deposit, like a wine ‘sur lie’.

1. Fish: Sharp’s Chalky’s Bite (6.8%) is a Belgian-inspired Cornish hazy wheat beer specially developed to go with fish dishes, originally for Rick Stein’s seafood restaurant in Padstow (named after Stein’s late dog). It’s partly fermented with Belgian yeast and subtly spiced with Cornish wild fennel. Like Belgian wheat beers it is spicy and slightly milky with citrus zest, flavourful enough to cut through oily food but subtle enough to highlight fish flavours. Its higher strength also gives it body. Bottle conditioned but meant to be served cloudy.
2. Curry: One of the few food matches where most people think of beer rather than wine, as curried foods overwhelm many wines, but sadly the beer of choice is usually a rather characterless Indian brand of lager (which has probably been brewed in the UK under license!) I suggest Thornbridge Jaipur (5.9%) from one of Britain’s best small breweries, in Bakewell, Derbyshire. This is one of numerous revivals of the very hoppy style of India Pale Ale (IPA) which was exported from the UK to India in the 18^th and 19^th centuries – but inflected by the very hoppy interpretations of IPA now popular among US craft brewers. It uses US Chinook and Cascade hops to give a very fruity, piny flavour in which I detect grapefruit, apricot and coconut, with a distinctly peppery-bitter though still quite distinct finish that should withstand all but the fieriest curry flavours. May be bottle conditioned: if so pour carefully for best appearance.
3. Meat pie and mash: This calls for a robust and malty traditional British ale. If in the pub I’d suggest a pint of the best traditional cask ‘brown bitter’ they have on. From the bottle, a great choice is Fuller’s 1845 (6.3%), originally recreated from a historic recipe to mark this London-based company’s 150^th anniversary in 1995. This is a big beer with the characteristic orangey tang of Fuller’s yeast and chewy, biscuity, burnt toast notes from amber and crystal malts. Its fruitiness and slightly bitter bite should offset the pie filling, while the malty biscuit character complements the pastry. Bottle conditioned so pour carefully for best appearance.
4. Chocolate: This is a flavour characteristic of many darker beers, arising from the use of highly roasted malts, one of which is actually called chocolate malt. Oddly, it also matches well with milder amber ales, but for a full-on complimentary flavour try Wells & Young’s Luxury Double Chocolate Stout which adds real chocolate bars and chocolate essence to a typical dark, dry stout made bitter with dark malts and roasted unmalted barley. A luxurious creamy texture has fruity raisin-like flavours, but the liqueurish sweetness is dried by a roasty bite and a gentle burr of hops. Now brewed in Bedford.

I was then asked: why serve beer in wine glasses?

For the same reasons it’s a good idea to serve wine in wine glasses.

• They are more elegant to look at than traditional beer glasses.
• They are plain glass and show off the colour and consistency of the beer and the head.
• They have a stem so you can hold them without warming up the contents with the heat of your hand (or cup them in your palm if the contents needs warming up)
• They are tapered inwards at the top to concentrate the aroma
• They contain a smaller quantity of liquid which is more appropriate when dining, especially with higher gravity beers as some of these are.

Something like a decently sized Bordeaux glass would do, with a capacity of around 500ml. It’s important as with wine not to fill the glasses to the brim but to leave space both for the head and for the aroma to develop. The habit in southern England of serving beer in brim measures doesn’t compliment it.

Please don’t serve it pub style in dimpled jugs or “noninck bulge” pint pots!

You can watch the show online after it has been broadcast at www.bbc.co.uk/oneshow.